At the Movies
by SimpleTechnicality
Summary: In an offshoot timeline Max and Chloe go to the drive-in in Newberg and run into Warren.


"Ugh, damn, _hippie!_ It's just one plastic bottle. Like mother earth can't take one more measly bottle to the face."

"Do you have any idea how long it takes for those things to decompose?"

"No, but I bet you're about to tell me."

"Centuries Chloe. Centuries."

Max's open hand shot out, her narrowed eyes darting between the empty Dasani bottle Chloe was dangling out the driver side window of her truck as it barreled down a deserted county road and Chloe herself, who assumed Max's pursed lips were supposed to communicate stern, but who couldn't help but see it as cute. You couldn't look anything but cute, Chloe decided, with freckles like those.

She gave a mock sigh of frustration, secretly pleased to have been able to coax this much of a reaction out of her tiny hipster. Max had been damn near lifeless for weeks now, between the worsening headaches, the visions of a storm that never came, and their inability to get anywhere with the Rachel Amber investigation. Not that Chloe was handling it any better mind you; sleepless nights, undereating, and several broken windows all attested to Chloe's struggles to make sense of the chaos that had sucked them up and passed them by, of the growing pit in her stomach that whispered doubts in her ear every night. That tried to tell her Rachel Amber was not, in fact, living it up in L.A. That somehow, somewhere, Chloe had fucked it up. She'd missed some vital clue, or followed the wrong one too far, or something, and now it was all over, the truth carried away and out of Arcadia Bay on the wind. The same wind that made Max flinch whenever it passed over her skin.

And if there was anything in the world that could distract her from the feeling that she'd somehow failed the only girl she'd ever loved, it was Max. And if a sixty mile drive out of town to go see some shitty sci-fi movie from the 80's was what it took to distract Max from the fact that she couldn't look out to the ocean without shaking and that she had to wash blood out of her pillow (and Chloe's hair, once) every morning, then Chloe was all up for it. She found worrying about the bags forming under Max's eyes much easier than worrying about than her own. Plus, it gave her a reason to get out of Arcadia Bay for the night, and that was always worth celebrating.

Max still had her hand out. Chloe looked back and forth between it and the window, pushing her knee up into the bottom of the steering wheel and bringing the bottle up to her face, tossing and twirling it between both hands, doing her best impersonation of a sinister smirk as she tapped chipped nails across the plastic bottles length.

"One bottle, two fates," she said, absentmindedly scratching off the bottles jacket, the D in the Dasani logo flipping over as the adhesive broke and it succumbed to gravity. "decisions, decisions."

"Stop being ridiculous Chloe. And you know you really shouldn't drive like that."

"Fuck off, I'm a great driver. And who are you calling ridiculous? I've got the fate of the world in my hands, remember? I can give the bottle of doom to Mother Max and save us all, or toss it out the window and let the world die from climate change or the ice age or whatever."

"…"

"…"

"..."

"Fine, here." Chloe tossed the bottle up in a high arc, where it bounced once off the roof of the cab before spiraling down right into Max's waiting hand, narrowly avoiding getting lost in the abyssal junk pit behind the seats. Chloe just stared at Max, who put the bottle in her bag before settling back in and doing her best to look smug.

"Don't lie to me; how many times did you have to rewind to make that catch?"

"Oh ye of little faith," she said, turning to look out the window in an ineffectual attempt to hide the shit-eating grin breaking out on her face, "like I would ever use time powers for something so trivial."

"Oh sure, Super Max is all about using her powers to save the world from litterbugs, but whenever I want to do something fun suddenly the power valve gets shut off."

"I wouldn't call driving into oncoming traffic 'fun,' Chloe."

"Bitch that would've been great and you know it."

"We shouldn't rely on my ability in life or death situations. In case you've forgotten we pretty well established the fact that my powers have limits."

Chloe reached one arm around Max and pulled her in close, her knee coming back up to hold the steering wheel as she waved her other hand slowly across the skyline ahead of them.

"You need to broaden your horizons Max-attack. So you don't have the gift of prophecy after all, who gives a shit? You're still sitting on the golden ticket here! We can go anywhere we want, do whatever we want! Go out on the road, live it up in L.A. or Seattle or San Francisco."

Max, rather than pull away, leaned further in, resting her tired frame against Chloe, who beat an erratic rhythm on her shoulder with one hand while the other finished presenting Max a golden future on the horizon and came to rest with its elbow propped up against the door, Chloe resting her head in one outstretched palm. She cracked a smile no one bought, adding "Maybe we'll even run into Rachel out there, somewhere."

Max just sighed and sunk deeper into Chloe's side, suddenly feeling exhausted. She thought about her slipping grades, the apocalyptic nightmares keeping her awake at night, her increasingly heated phone calls with her parents. The headaches that just. Would. Not. Stop.

And then she thought about driving off with Chloe into the sunset in her shitty pick-up. Of using these powers that hadn't seemed to help her or anyone else to give her best friend everything she thought life owed her and more. And of how much more comfortable Chloe's sharp, bony shoulder was than her bed back at Blackwell.

"You shouldn't drive like that." Max mumbled out, breaking for a moment the comfortable silence that had engulfed them, her eyes drifting shut even as she spoke. Chloe grunted in response, eyes staring out into nothing as she lost herself in her own train of thought.

She opened her mouth to speak, but was interrupted by Max suddenly springing into motion, small hands darting out to grab the steering wheel at the same time Chloe noticed the doe jump out from behind the tree line and right out into the middle of the road.

"Fuck!"

Lll

The shitty drive-in theater in Newberg was far from Chloe's idea of a good time. But she was hoping the goofy movie marathon they were playing would cheer up Max. And Max herself had hoped just getting outside the city limits of Arcadia Bay would calm Chloe down, at least for a minute.

Chloe reached the mouth of the line funneling into the parking lot in the shadow of the massive screen with a petulant expression on her face and two fingers manipulating the wheel. Max, who had been nursing a brand new headache and shooting dirty looks at Chloe for her blatant refusal to learn from a future that never was in which she'd drove off the side of the road and into a tree, probably getting both of them seriously injured, had long since fallen asleep with her head pillowed on said Chloe's lap.

Chloe resisted the urge to do anything sappy and gay like stroke her hair or gently shake her, instead resorting to flicking Max in the back of the head repeatedly as she maneuvered the truck into the first available space she could find. She rolled down the window and let the cold air and white noise of chatter and muffled radios fill the cab, lighting up a cigarette as a grumbling Max came to, pulling the short jacket Chloe had laid over her tight against her shoulders to ward against the sudden chill.

"Shit," Max said, rubbing her eyes and lifting herself up off Chloe's thighs, "I fell asleep."

"No shit. You snore like a drunk pirate with emphysema, by the way."

"Do not. Lord, I'm gonna be sleepy the whole time though."

Max started rooting around in her bag, Chloe glancing at her as she did so, just by chance noticing the trail of blood seeping down her friends left nostril.

"Dude, fuck, you nose." Chloe pointed out, Max reaching up with one hand to touch the stream nearing her upper lip and pulling it back, confirming that it was indeed blood running down her face.

Her eyes went wide in a way that had shivers running up Chloe's back, her hands digging through her pack with increased fervor as she muttered "goddamnit" under her breath.

Chloe reached her left hand down between the seat and the door and pulled out the dented box of tissues she'd stuffed down there for this express purpose. She took one last quick drag from her cigarette before tossing it out the window and using her now free hand and pull out a handful of tissues. Her other hand let the box fall back between the seats before reaching over to cup the back of Max's head.

"Here, I gotch ya" she said as she brought the wad up to Max's nose, using both hands to gently tilt her head back. Max let her bag fall back to the floor as she put her hands on top of the one Chloe was using to keep the cloth pressed up against her face. Chloe slipped her hand out from under Max's and let go of the back of her head, settling back into her seat and waiting for Max to finish her first-aid while trying to be discreet about checking her lap for blood stains.

Luckily the brunette didn't appear to have started bleeding until after she'd gotten up. Chloe gave her jacket a quick once over, not much caring if _that_ got blood on it, before leaning back in her seat and running a hand through her hair. No doubt her roots were beginning to show, she thought to herself. She'd need to dye it again soon. Her eyes drifted towards the rear view, but of course it was just dark enough so that she couldn't see anything, and the light on the roof of her truck had stopped working days ago.

Her eyes drifted instead the brightest thing in view, three little flashing numbers; only eight-thirty. They still had another fifteen minutes before it started, Chloe thought, with no small amount of dread. And then the previews, then the overrated shlock itself. What Max saw in the early Planet of the Apes movies Chloe would never know.

Speaking of which…

Chloe looked over at Max, who was still leaning back with her eyes shut tight and a wad of bloody tissue pressed up against her nose, her shoulders practically limp as she slumped back in her seat. So much for cheering her up, Chloe thought. Now they both got to be miserable. And all because of that fucking deer too.

When Max spoke her voice was so soft Chloe thought for a second she'd imagined it.

"You say something?"

"I said, would you mind getting me something to drink?"

Max rolled down her window and tossed the bloody tissue out, both of them cringing when she realized what she'd just done, Chloe getting ready to physically hold her down to prevent her from rewinding again if necessary. Thankfully Max just shrugged her shoulders after a second, evidently deciding to just let that one instance of littering go, before bending forward to go back to rooting through her pack.

She came back up with a couple of crumpled bills in her hand, with she held out towards Chloe, who wanted to punch herself after getting a look and Max's bloodshot eyes and the dark bags framing them.

"Preferably something with caffeine in it, so my lazy ass can stay awake?"

"Uhhh, yeah. Yeah, sure, I'm on it."

Chloe took the money and tore her eyes away from the tired look Max was shooting her, taking the keys out of the ignition and setting them up on the dash before opening up her door and climbing out.

Max leaned back into her seat and closed her eyes, telling herself she was just resting them, that no way was she about to fall back asleep. She listened to the sound Chloe's boots trudge through the gravel behind her, heading towards the concession stands, and was briefly contemplating peeling her eyes back open so she could use her cell phone light to get a good look at the latest art Chloe had left on the wall behind her before she got back. She couldn't bring herself to expend the effort though. It was easier to just lay there and wait for Chloe's footsteps to come back into hearing range.

Her mind started to drift, slowly sinking back into unconscious, when a hand slammed against the window next to her face.

Max shot up, wide eyed, one hand jerking towards the keys on the dash while her throat worked itself up to scream for Chloe. She would realize later that it was Nathans form that came to mind in that very instant; she could see him standing out there, black-eyed, bloody-knuckled, high as a kite.

As it was a familiar voice broke through Max's sudden panic, muffled slightly by the window, his face obscured by the fog that had formed as a result of her breathing.

"Yo Max! What's up?"

Max rolled down her window, Warrens pinched face coming into view. The smell of weed and old clothes hit him like a brick.

"Whoa," he said, fanning the air in front of his nose," sorry, didn't know I was interrupting a party."

"Hmm?" Max responded, confused. She'd long since gotten used the aroma that permeated any enclosed space Chloe spent any significant amount of time in.

Warren noted, with some relief, that while she looked like she hadn't slept right in days she at least looked sober.

"The uh, yeah, never mind. So hey, you shoulda told me you changed you mind about seeing the movies, we could've parked together."

Shit, Max thought. She'd forgotten all about Warren inviting her to come here with him last week, what felt like a life time ago. She prayed silently to anyone that would listen that this didn't get awkward. She resisted the urge to look for Warrens beat up car and, if it was in view, the no doubt pissed off Brooke who was glaring daggers at Max by now.

"Sorry. It's been kind of a hectic week. I totally meant to, it just, uh, slipped my mind."

"That's cool."

Warren crossed one leg over the other and leaned in on the truck door, his eyes scanning it once over before looking back to Max.

"So this is that punk-rock chicks car, right?"

"Mhm. Her names Chloe."

"She ditch you for someone cooler?"

Max did her best to affect an insulted scoff, turning her head in a hollow mockery of a move she'd seen Victoria use once.

"As though anyone here could be as cool as me. I'm practically the queen of cool over here."

"Riiight. So anyway, I better get back to getting me and Brooke some snacks. Think your blue-haired friend would have any interest in all of us grabbing a bite to eat after the show? Brookes been going on all night about this Thai place in town she wants to try."

No, Max thought. And frankly neither did she. Warren was her friend, and Brooke could be nice enough, but the truth was that the idea of being around two Blackwell students right now made her skin crawl.

"I'll be sure to ask her about it when she gets back."

"Cool. Just hit me up after the shows over and we'll see about what's open, alright?" Warren said as he stood up and started drifting over towards the concessions.

"Will do." Max responded, her hand reaching out the window to give Warren a short wave, not bothering to look to see if he saw.

She really hoped he didn't run into Chloe.

Lll

Chloe watched the lanky nerd amble away from the passenger side window of her truck with gritted teeth.

She recognized him from the few instances where she'd picked Max up or dropped her off at school, seen him shoot the short brunette _looks_ when he thought no one was watching, seen them hanging out together by the fountain or under a tree by the Blackwell parking lot. More prominently however, she knew Warren from the mountains of text he'd sent Max, which she'd read with one part glee and two parts second hand embarrassment one late night spent dicking around in her best friends phone.

He was so crushing on her. And Max was so oblivious.

And Chloe was so having none of it.

She intercepted him four rows of cars away from the line of booths selling over-priced popcorn and soda, planting a hand on his shoulder from behind and spinning him around with enough force that he nearly fell on his ass.

" _Whoa_ , hey!"

Chloe ignored his suddenly defensive posture, his clenched fist, bending down and getting her face right up in his before letting into him, her volume constrained only by the paranoid certainty that if she yelled at one of Max's friends, no matter how creepy they were being, she'd find out and be upset.

"The fuck do you think you're doing you little shit!"

"Uhhhh… getting popcorn?"

Chloe stepped forward, Warren backing away until she had him cornered up against the side of an empty BMW.

"Hold on for a second, Chloe, I think I'm missing something here."

"Damn right you are. Where the fuck do you get off trying to hit on Max?"

The low cut in her barely restrained voice unnerved him more than the reek of weed coming off her clothes in waves, more than the tattoo or the cut across the knuckles of the fist she had clenched and ever so slightly raised. Not quite as much as the fact that she literally towered over him though, and stood barely a foot away; close enough to head butt him, some pained thing in the far back of his brain pointed out. He resisted the urge to rub his forehead.

"I wasn't hitting on her?"

"Bullshit, it's basically all you fucking do. I saw you at my truck just know you little punk, and if you expect me to believe…"

"…wait!" Warren interrupted, his discomfort quickly overtaken by curiosity as he thought the implications of this dialogue through. "Since when do you care if I 'hit on' Max?"

"Since I sent you that fucking text!" Another step forward, and suddenly a good part of Warren wished he could just melt through the side of the car. Most of him, however, was busy following that train of thought to its logical conclusion.

"All you said was that she was off limits for the movie…I just assumed…uh…are you guys here, together? Like, on a, date?"

Chloe opened her mouth to respond, her face contorted into a mask of barely constrained fury.

And then she froze.

Because she realized with mounting disquiet and annoyance that she wasn't really sure how to answer that, to Warren or herself.

Was it a date? She hadn't intended it to be a date, just a convenient little outing that Max would enjoy. Did Max see it as a date?

What were they really doing, even? They were doing something, certainly. The fact that they hadn't left each other's side in a week, the fact that Chloe hadn't slept in her own bed in three nights, and that Max hadn't slept alone since last weekend, attested to that. The fact that Chloe could feel the brunettes absence like a slow burn, that no matter where she went or who she was with, she felt alone when she wasn't with Max. All familiar feelings.

Which led to the sticking point, that pang of guilt whenever she felt the urge to wrap her arms around her friend and hold her close in a decidedly non-platonic fashion. A stubborn loyalty to the last girl that had made her feel that way, like she wasn't alone, a lighter, prettier girl that had in all likelihood abandoned her. And cheated on her with their drug dealer.

"I, uh, I mean…"

Warren watched as Chloe's face fell out of the snarl it had been contorting itself into, replaced with an unreadable look of furrowed eyebrows and a sad, far away stare. Warren would have described it as vulnerable, were he not still incredible uneasy with her proximity, were his balls not trying to claw back up into his body at the anticipation of the beating he'd been sure she was about to give him. He breathed a sigh of relief as she stepped back.

Her eyes were still focused elsewhere, lips slightly parted, tightly clenched fist slightly elevated; Warren thought she looked like she was trying to work out whether she wanted to say something or punch him. He decided not to let her get to either conclusion, and spoke up first.

"Do you…wanna talk about it?"

Lll

Max was checking out Chloe's latest rendition of the word 'fuck' scrawled in sharp, zigg-zaggy lines in black marker on the rear of cab, right to the left of her head, when said Chloe popped open the driver side door and threw herself into the seat. Max clicked her cellphone light off and looked to Chloe, who wordlessly handed her a large diet soda and a red bendy straw to stab through the lid. Max took it, eyeing it long enough to shove the straw through its top and gulp down several mouthfuls of life affirming caffeine before turning back to Chloe. Chloe pushed herself as far back as she could go, lifted her legs up and rested them up against the dash between the steering wheel and the window, crossed her arms, and stared intently at the scream ahead of them as it began to come to life.

Max opened her mouth to say something, closed it, then turned to stare at the screen too.

"I ran into your friend. The geekboy that's always up your ass? Warren?"

Max winced, dreading the idea of the damage control she was going to have to perform.

"And how did that go?" she asked hesitantly.

"Eh. He's alright, I guess. Kind of a freak, but you seem to attract those."

Max mentally sighed in relief, smiling as she replied. "Right. I just keep adding to the collection, don't I?"

"You could do worse. For a friend, I mean."

The music began to start up, both Max's and Chloe's faces thrown up in sharp relief in the light of the screen ahead of them. Chloe turned to Max.

"Hey, you like Thai food?


End file.
